It's Just Too Easy to Get Into the Playoffs

San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan (21) celebrates with Manu Ginobili (20) during a game last month.
Associated Press

By

Brian Resutek

April 2, 2014 6:50 p.m. ET

As the Atlanta Hawks and New York Knicks vie for the final playoff spot in the NBA's Eastern Conference, fans of both teams shouldn't get too excited.

The Count went back a decade to determine exactly how difficult it is to qualify for the playoffs in each of the four major sports. The conclusion: It's pretty easy.

In fact, every NBA and NHL franchise has qualified at least once for the playoffs since 2004. Some franchises, however, such as the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and Detroit Red Wings, are clearly superior to others when it comes to advancing to the postseason. Those three have made the playoffs every season since 2004, although that streak will end for the Nuggets this season.

On the other hand, the Minnesota Timberwolves haven't played a postseason game since Kevin Garnett and Latrell Sprewell led the Timberwolves to the Western Conference finals in 2004.

Even in Major League Baseball, where fewer teams make the playoffs, only four clubs haven't made it during this span: the Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays. And while the NFL is considering adding an additional wild-card team, only three teams—the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns and Oakland Raiders—have missed out the past decade.

Perhaps leagues should look at scaling back the number of playoff spots as motivation wanes from teams that clinch spots early. Consider the Indiana Pacers, who clinched a playoff berth on March 5, or 42 days before the regular-season finale. Since then, the Pacers have lost eight of their last 15 games, following Wednesday's play.

The last 25 years screwed up the regular seasons in a few sports. This nonsense of having soft or hard schedules because you have to play more games in your own division slants the results to have 500 clubs beating 560 clubs to get to the play-offs. Who wants to waste their time watching some bone club get lucky and beat a top tier team? Baseball is really bad with inter league play. All teams again don't have the same schedule.

all the whining fails to recognize the more obvious: it's a 2-part season, and the first part is just a very long elimination round. It's there just to weed out the really weak teams, not to reward the mediocre.

The first playoff round is the real test; getting a bottom-seed to beat a top-seed in the first round, or a gladiator contest in a "wild-card" round, is the real test to make it to a real playoff berth. Those systems with seeding for the first round, rather than wild-cards rarely have upsets. And the wild-card games are just extensions of the season.

With all of that, it's not until the initial playoff round of any sport that teams generate any real interest outside of their home towns.

The number of teams who have made it to the playoffs in the last 10 years is a measure of parity, not of whether "it is too easy" to make it. 53% of NHL and NBA teams make the playoffs, not 90%. If you want to evaluate whether it is "too easy" to make the playoffs, you have to evaluate how many times a statistically inferior team throughout the year, assuming relative team health, has been crowned the champion. If a "bad" team is winning too often, instead of one of the top teams from the season, then your playoffs are both too easy to get into and too easy to win. Without crunching the numbers, my guess is that the MLB playoffs, with so many wildcard champs, are allowing too many inferior teams to win it all. But you should probably crunch those numbers instead of data that simply tells you whether there is parity in major sports. Parity is good! Most fans have something to look forward to.Americans view playoffs as the determining factor of which team has "won" the season, but there is no reason this needs to be true. European football leagues have historically celebrated the leader in points at the end of the season, although they are now placing greater importance on playoffs such as the "Champions League" and various "cups" tournaments.

A fairly simple reason why there are so many playoff teams: Many of the franchises need the extra playoff games to either break even or make a small profit for the season. Meanwhile, the fans pay through the nose. Lousy system.

I think 90% of NBA and NHL teams make it to the playoffs, wherupon they then get fresh 0-0 records. Those leagues have sold their soul to TV who demands more playoff games. The hope is then to not lose interest in the regular season. But the NBA has lost me, as has NCAA basketball with their absolutely meaningless regular seasons.

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